SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — Capping a frenzied final week of the recall campaign that featured pitches from current and former presidents and governors, California voters hit the polls Tuesday to decide Governor Gavin Newsom’s political fate.
Newsom and the Democrats believe their registration advantage can stomp out the Republican-led gubernatorial recall attempt, which is just the second to qualify for the ballot in California history. Republicans meanwhile hope the power of direct democracy can revive a party that has essentially gone dormant amid the state’s decades-long progressive shift.
Heading into the recall election, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1. Voters haven't elected a GOP governor since 2006.
Stats and trends aside, if just a simple majority of voters answer yes to the recall question, a Republican is all but certain to take over the reins of the nation’s most liberal state.
Nationally Democrats are paying close attention to California, including the head of the party who likened Republican frontrunner and conservative talk show host Larry Elder to his predecessor.
"You either keep Gavin Newsom as your governor, or you get Donald Trump," President Joe Biden told voters late Monday at a Newsom campaign event. "The rest of America is counting on you and so am I."
Early voting has been ongoing for weeks as all 22 million registered voters received a ballot via mail, but millions across the Golden State lined up Tuesday to answer the question of “Newsom or someone else” the old fashioned way.
In one of the state’s last Republican strongholds in California’s agricultural belt, Courthouse News found a mixed bag when asked about Newsom’s performance.
Outside a voting station in Visalia, a farming community that serves as the seat for Tulare County, Jessica Garcia gleefully exclaimed she had “absolutely voted for Newsom,” and told all her friends and family to do likewise.
“He’s done a fantastic job and he actually cares about people, unlike some others running. It would be really bad if people kick him out,” she said.
Other Tulare County residents were more eager to see a change at the top, including James Ford who said his local plumbing business never recovered from Newsom’s strict pandemic orders.
“I voted to recall Newsom; he acts like there’s one set of rules for people like him and another for the rest of us,” said Ford. “That’s why he was so quick to shut everything down for Covid — he knew he would be all right.”
Newsom has been a public servant for the last two decades, but before politics he became a millionaire through his involvement with a successful chain of wine stores and restaurants in San Francisco and the Napa Valley. Since becoming governor in 2019, Newsom has put his ownership interests in the wine and tourism ventures into a blind trust. Nonetheless, critics have routinely criticized and accused Newsom of crafting and skirting rules to benefit himself and the wine industry as a whole.
In perhaps the most damaging and obvious gaffe of his first term, Newsom was photographed at a swanky Napa Valley dinner party this past fall at a time when Californians weren’t supposed to be mingling outside their households. Critics said the “French Laundry” incident proved Newsom felt he was above the very pandemic rules he issued and the controversial dinner helped land the recall on the ballot.
Visalia voter Anthony Thomas said he originally thought Newsom was handling Covid-19 well and didn’t mind the lockdowns, but the French Laundry scandal tipped the scales against the Democratic governor.
“The whole do as I say, not as I do thing is annoying,” said Thomas, a state worker. “I didn’t think he did bad during Covid but taking 10% of state workers’ wages while not cutting his own pay hurt.”
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